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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (26371)	4/21/2004 3:04:26 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Do you feel a draft? news.yahoo.com A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (26371)	4/21/2004 3:40:12 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Unfortunately, you do not seem to have read my posts. You would have seen this: At another point the book quotes as if it were accurate a passage from Newsweek (July 30, 1945): "Behind that curtain [of propaganda]Japan had put forward at least one definite offer. Fearing the results of Russian participation in the war, Tokyo transmitted to Generalissimo Joseph Stalin the broad terms on which it professed willingness to settle all scores." The "broad terms" are never defined. In fact, they did not exist. Japanese approaches to the Soviet Union began in mid-July with what Truman in his diary called a "telegram from [the] Jap Emperor asking for peace." Alperovitz and other atomic revisionists have attached great importance to this communication, which did have Emperor Hirohito's personal interest. Yet Alperovitz's own summary and quotation shows that it contained no more than the emperor's hope that in order to end suffering the war might "be quickly terminated." It then went on to express Japan's resolve "to fight on with all its strength" so long as the United States and Great Britain insisted on unconditional surrender. It concluded by asking the Soviet Union to receive Prince Fumimaro Konoye as a special envoy. Because the Japanese neither presented an agenda nor specified any basis for discussion, both Washington and Moscow dismissed the proposal as meaningless and perhaps a stalling tactic to prevent Soviet intervention.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (26371)	4/21/2004 3:42:31 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Or this: He persuasively depicts a Japanese regime always a step or two behind the curve of the war, denying the certainty of defeat and unwilling or unable to state peace terms that might have been compatible with the American demand for unconditional surrender. At no point before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the Japanese government prepared to surrender on the sole basis of the personal safety and nominal continuance of the emperor. (Who can doubt that had such terms been offered by the Japanese before August 6 they would have been accepted?) For many Japanese leaders, preservation of the emperor meant preservation of the imperial system, and with it their own positions. After the destruction of Hiroshima, the military leaders still rejected an American military occupation, disarmament, and war crimes trials conducted by the victors. News of the Nagasaki bomb was decisive, not in changing their minds, but in motivating the civilian leaders and Emperor Hirohito to face reality.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (26371)	4/21/2004 3:45:37 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Or this: President Truman authorized the use of atomic bomb. After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and following an abortive military coup and intensive debate in the military-ruled government, Japan surrendered. The authors reveal how a faction in the Japanese military plotted to overturn the Emperor’s decision to surrender and planned to fight on.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (26371)	4/21/2004 3:47:23 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 93284

Or this: General of the Army George C. Marshall worried that even with the two atomic bombings, an invasion might be necessary. He had earlier observed that in a raid with conventional bombs five months before, "we had 100,000 people killed in Tokyo in one night and it had seemingly no effect whatsoever." In fact, it took another six days after the second atomic bombing - and the foiling of an attempted coup by military diehards who wanted the nation to fight to the end - before Emperor Hirohito, in an unprecedented personal radio broadcast to his nation, cited the "new and most cruel bomb" in announcing the surrender. "The U.S. knew that the Japanese had given no indication that they were going to surrender," says Ohio University World War II historian Marvin Fletcher. "The use of the bomb to convince the Japanese of what was obvious - that they had lost the war - was a necessary choice. Truman would have been derelict if he had done otherwise. The number of Americans and Japanese who would have died if the invasions had gone as planned would have been, in my mind, higher than the number of Japanese who died at Hiroshima."

To: Thomas M. who wrote (26371)	4/21/2004 3:50:43 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 93284

Or, finally, this: On the other hand, Pach says, "the least credible revisionist arguments are that Japan's overtures in June and July towards negotiations that might have dealt with peace was tantamount to surrender or seeking surrender. That simply doesn't hold water. I would not rule out that influencing the Soviet Union was a factor for principal officials who were involved with the bomb, but I don't agree that it was the primary consideration." (I am not, by the way, trying to prove anything to you, beyond that a lot of reputable historians do not agree with you. That does not mean that you are wrong, but it does mean that the matter is not likely to be obvious and beyond debate.)